Home is Where You Hang Your Costume
by Random Guise
Summary: In the aftermath of the movie "Mystery Men" (1999) the second-rate saviors of Champion City need to get organized after their first victory. I don't own these characters, but as far as you know I'm truly Amazing.


**A/N: In the aftermath of the movie "Mystery Men" (1999) the second-rate saviors of Champion City need to get organized.**

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Home is Where you Hang your Costume

Stumbling away from the film crews that were documenting the smoking ruin that used to be Casanova Frankenstein's mansion, the band of heroes made their way to the diner that was home. Collapsing into two booths, they were joyful but soon found it difficult to communicate both from trying to talk between tables and constant interruptions from noisy patrons congratulating them on their victory.

"This isn't going to work" the Shoveler tried to shout to Mr. Furious.

"You're going to work? Now?" Mr. Furious replied, not hearing over the din. "Savor the spoils of victory, man. Order a sandwich! You've been up all night, you deserve it."

"What my colleague is trying to say" Blue Raja started to translate but his fake British accent was quickly swamped by the noise level of the room.

"We're needing to make a name for ourselves" Mr. Furious tried again.

"We're reading to take the blame ourselves?" Bowler asked, straining to hear.

Shoveler stood up and motioned them all to follow him outside, and they all made their way to the exterior where the noise level was greatly reduced with now only traffic, construction and other normal noises contributing to the lessened din that was Champion City.

"I couldn't even hear myself think" Invisible Boy said as he shook his head. "Too much of that and I'd be Deaf Boy."

"It was so crowded that people were actually getting close to me on purpose" the Spleen lisped. "Good thing that flesh wound I got didn't affect my control." With the power of controlled flatulence, any loss of control could spell disaster for friend and foe alike.

"I don't think my boss will let you guys hang out at the diner anymore if it's going to get that raucous, even if my boyfriend _is_ a superhero" Monica said as she leaned against Mr. Furious. "Sorry, Roy."

"No real names" Shoveler whispered as he hushed her. "We don't want to blow our secret identities."

"Rachael's correct, it can't be the diner" Raja agreed.

"Monica" she corrected.

"Monica; right, sorry."

A dirty, muscular construction worker walked by. "See you at work tomorrow, Eddie" he called to the superhero with the shovel on his back.

"Oh yeah, _real_ secret" the Bowler groaned. "I mean, we're all wearing our superhero costumes after talking to news cameras. We have to go all the way back to the junkyard if we want to change into our real clothes."

"It's not a junkyard, it's an auto dismantler and the less Sally sees us there the better. Don't even think of using her yard for a new headquarters" Mr. Furious shivered, thinking of the possibility of explaining the group to his boss.

"A new headquarters - yeah, that's what we need! All the great superhero teams have a great HQ!" Invisible Boy enthused.

"The team that has no home can never be the home team" a voice said from behind them. They turned and saw a hooded figure that hadn't been there a moment before.

"Sphinx!" Shoveler greeted the arrival of their chief trainer. "See, even he agrees. Let's put our heads together and come up with an idea for a new headquarters; I called Lucille to let her know I won't be home for a few hours. Anybody have any thoughts?"

...

"Sphinx said 'Knowledge is the one weapon that cannot be taken from you' before he left," Shoveler recalled in a low voice "so I figured the place with the most knowledge was the library. Why not try it for a headquarters?" The group sat in their normal clothes at a table in Champion City's main library branch.

"Yeah, we could look up stuff and everything!" Invisible Boy said excitedly. "Books, databases, magazines..."

"Shhhh!" a stern-looking woman said from a desk near their table.

"We could look up stories in the newspapers to find where we're needed" Spleen added. "We can mobilize and fight evil like a wave of...not-evil."

"Shhhh!" the woman repeated, this time lowering her glasses to stare at the group. They fidgeted and put their heads closer together to reduce the need to talk louder.

"We just have to remember to keep our voices down is all" Bowler cautioned. "No getting upset, _Mr. Furious_."

"Hey, I've got a short fuse that can explode anytime" he said, standing.

"Actually, it isn't the fuse that explodes..." Blue Raja started to correct.

"My fuse explodes if I say it does!" At this outburst a chair scraped across the floor as the librarian pushed away from the desk and strode over to the group.

"This is a public library, and you will kindly keep quiet while using it" she said in a low voice that nevertheless chilled the blood.

Shoveler was quick to respond. "I'm sorry ma'am, it's a wonderful library and we'll keep more quiet in the future."

The librarian almost turned to leave, then did a double take on Mr. Furious. "Excuse me...it's Roy, isn't it?"

"Ah, yes ma'am" he responded reluctantly.

"I thought so. You, sir, still have three books that are overdue now...let me think...about two years. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave until you return them and pay the fine or replacement fee."

"You can bind up books lady, but you can't bind up freedom" Roy growled.

"You have the freedom to pay the fine, replacement fee or be banned. Do I need to call security?"

...

"I have to admit, it's different" Raja admitted "although we British always prefer to ride by train when possible." He looked out the large bus window as the storefronts moved past.

"See, I told you it'd be perfect" Mr. Furious bragged. "The bus route loops around central downtown so we never have to travel completely across the city, and there is always plenty of room." The group had the whole back of the city bus to themselves except for a scruffy-looking older man in the very back who lay across the seat.

"We do have to make sure we have exact change" Bowler noted. "Sphinx had to stay behind when they couldn't break a bill."

Raja got excited. "A woman was just being robbed there. We need to help!" Spleen rushed forward to notify the driver, who simply pointed at the sign above his head wordlessly and kept driving.

Spleen returned more slowly to the back and relayed the message to his colleagues. "No passengers may enter or exit between stops" he repeated.

"We'll just get off at the next stop then" Raja said and he stood, a questioning look coming over his face as he looked where he had just sat. "Blast, some blithering idiot has left gum on the seat" he said disgustedly before he nearly fell over as the bus made a big left turn.

"And now we're heading in the wrong direction" Shoveler bemoaned. "This isn't going to work."

...

"If the public can't call you for help, your calling can't be to help the public" Sphinx suggested as they stood outside a row of three pay phone booths.

"That makes sense to me" Invisible Boy observed. "Trying to use some type of light signal won't work during daytime anyway."

"How is anyone going to call us anyway?" Bowler asked. "Are they going to look us up in the yellow pages or what?"

"I spread flyers around" Spleen explained "with the telephone number for this booth: 555-5309."

Mr. Furious checked the coin slot for change before glancing at the number posted on the phone. "Wait - this one says 555-5412 on it. Are you sure you got the number right?"

"Of course I did; I copied it onto a paper so I wouldn't forget." As Spleen dug into his pocket for the paper, the phone in the booth next door rang. Shoveler made it into the booth first, but he was quickly piled on by several of the heroes in their zeal.

"Pick it up!"

"Ouch, you're on my foot..."

"Well your elbow is in my eye..."

"Quiet!" Shoveler yelled as he put his ear to the receiver. "This is the Shoveler. No...no...no, I don't know what song is playing on your radio station right now even if I could win $200. Bye!" he commanded as he hung up the handset. As they extricated themselves from the booth, he noticed the number on the phone wasn't the right one either just as the last booth began ringing. They stumbled out to attempt to answer it just as a homeless person closed the door to the booth.

Blue Raja strode up to the door and knocked on it and called through the glass "I say, do be a sport and...oh...my...God" as he turned away and blocked the view from the others.

"Did he answer the phone?" Bowler asked, wondering what happened as she tried to peek around.

"No, he...forgive the language...defiled...the booth, the cad. I don't think we will be using that booth again, chaps" he explained with a shaken look. "This isn't going to work either, I'm afraid."

...

"I don't really like this park" Mr. Furious said as he surveyed the small clearing they were now in.

"Then why don't you leave?" asked Bowler.

"Why don't you leave?"

"Why don't YOU leave?"

"Roy, Carol, please" Eddie pleaded. "This park was good enough to train in while we were getting ready to take out Casanova's Psycho-frakulator before it destroyed the city; we can set up shop here."

"It IS nice" Invisible Boy said as he scanned the area. "We could set up our tents here on the grass and train out of sight of everyone else."

There were sounds of gurgling from several directions and suddenly they were assaulted in all directions from pop-up sprinklers watering the grass. Very quickly they became soaked.

"OR we could find a place where we won't drown" Bowler suggested. "Every place we try is Hell for some reason."

"Hell...Heller. Let's go see Doc Heller; maybe he has a suggestion" Shoveler said in desperation.

Squishing with every step, they trod away in search of another place.

...

Packed into Shoveler's station wagon, the group arrived at the desolate Heller Fairgrounds, located on the edge of Champion City. A faded sign read:

_Doctor A. Heller_  
_W.D., Innovator, Inventor, World Changer, Electrolysis, Aromatherapy, Chicken Rentals._  
_Inquire at the Journey to the Center of Mars Funhouse_

"W.D.?" Spleen asked.

"Weapons designer - remember?" Shoveler replied.

"Oh yeah." Doc Heller had designed the weapons the group used to assault Frankenstein Casanova's mansion. Each was non-lethal, but their use caused the enemy to be incapacitated by various means. The odd weapons complimented the arcane skills of the group; Shoveler's shovel prowess, the Spleen's weaponized flatulence, the Blue Raja's fork hurling, the raw berserk power of Mr. Furious, the Sphynx's ability to cut guns in half, the only-as-long-as-no-looks-at-me invisibility of Invisible Boy and the deadly projectile that was the Bowler's ball.

As they drove up to the funhouse, they were welcomed by the sight of a charred mass that still had a distinctive shape. Exiting the wagon, they trouped over to the blackened hulk and paid tribute to the vehicle that had gained them entrance into the mansion that eventful night. The Herkimer battle jitney had crashed the iron gate, broken down the main doors and disarmed the crime bosses of their weapons with its nuclear magnet before disgorging the heroes to fight in the interior. Now it sat like a big chunk of charcoal.

"My team!" Heller yelled as he advanced out of the funhouse, his arms extended in victory. "You did it!"

"We couldn't have done it without your help" Shoveler greeted him back. "I'm only sorry that it cost us the jitney; that was some transportation."

"Oh, it'll be fine after I work my magic on it" Heller said as he picked up a tire iron and whacked the side of the bus with a loud clang. A piece of creosote fell off, revealing metal underneath the layer of black. "It got blown out of the mansion in the explosion before the building imploded. Give me a week or two and it'll be as good as new - even better when I try out a few ideas I have."

"Are you going to mount a blame-thrower on it?" asked Bowler. When fired at an opponent, it caused the enemy to start bickering uncontrollably among themselves.

"Nah, I want your feedback from all my stuff that you used so that I can improve 'em. This will be new stuff; you know, top secret and all."

"Right, we'll leave you to what you do best Doc. We're here for advice" Shoveler asked.

"Anything for my team. I'll even give you a discount on chicken rentals."

"Right, we'll keep that in mind. No, what we need is some help finding a headquarters for the team. Someplace where we can relax, plan and maybe even train. Got any ideas?"

Heller spread his arms and twirled around once. "Remote, quiet, and plenty of room. You can have the old horticulture building after I clear out the birds roosting there; just keep in mind next month on the 15th I've got the grounds rented out for a senior night so you might want to stay clear then."

"You still run these rides?" Invisible Boy asked.

"If I get a big enough rental, yeah. The aromatherapy biz has slowed down lately so I make a buck when I can. Speaking of, I'd appreciate it if you could work my name into any interviews in the future - you know, drum up a little business for the ol' Doc."

"Glad to, Doc" Shoveler said "assuming we ever get interviewed again. Pretty much nobody knows about us yet so we're keeping our day jobs until things pick up. I don't suppose publicist is one of your services?"

"Are you kidding? I avoid the press like the plague; I met Captain Amazing's publicist Vic Weems years ago and the guy gave me the creeps. But I know a guy who might help" Heller said as he fumbled around in his pockets before pulling out a business card. He wrote something on the card and handed it over.

"Jericho Nano. Not the same guy with the hot dog chain?" Handwritten on the card was 'Doc says Hi'.

"The same. He sold the business a long time ago, but he built that sucker up from one corner stand. The guy knows everything there is about marketing and promotion. I helped him out with a few things while he was getting started; he might take it on _pro bono_ just for the challenge."

"I like the price."

The End

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**A/N: Superhero movies are all the biggest blockbusters in theaters now, but two decades ago that wasn't quite the case so a movie that lampooned them was even more odd and this movie was FULL of odd; I've loaned out my copy for months at a time for people to watch.**

**The idea for the story came from my son; when I said I hadn't written a story for this movie yet he suggested "why not a search for a headquarters" and that was all I needed to be off running.**


End file.
